Hard National Security Choices

Tag Archives: Washington Post

Two human rights groups released reports today on civilian casualties from selected drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen. Amnesty International’s “Will I Be Next?” US Drone Strikes in Pakistan investigates nine drone strikes in North Waziristan between January 2012 and August 2013. Human Rights Watch’s “Between a Drone and Al Qaeda” The Civilian Cost of US Targeted Killings in . . . Read more »

Over at the Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf takes a peek at my ideology in response to my critique of the Washington Post’s recent story on NSA collection of email contact lists overseas. I’m glad he did. Without this story, I might not know what I believe: Wittes isn’t just saying that the benefits of revealing this information are . . . Read more »

The Washington Post this morning has the latest Snowden-leaked document story: “The National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans, according to senior intelligence officials and top-secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.” The story has a lot of . . . Read more »

Courtesy of my office mate, Ross Tilchin, comes this Washington Post piece about a letter Adm. Bill McRaven, head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, wrote to one Walker Greentree, a 6-year old boy who wanted more information about the elite members of our armed forces. McRaven had some important advice for him—and even answered . . . Read more »

Yesterday’s Washington Post editorial discussed the pernicious effects of the shutdown on U.S. national security, and quoted John’s post from last Sunday in it. The editorial opens: IF HOUSE Republicans have had an obsession to rival their hatred of the Affordable Care Act, it has been their determination to find a scandal in the 2012 attack on . . . Read more »

The following is my my prepared statement for today’s hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The hearing, which is beginning at this hour, concerns reform of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Thank you, Chairman Feinstein, Vice Chairman Chambliss, and members of the committee for inviting me to present my views on reform of the Foreign . . . Read more »

The world now has extraordinary access to the details of how the United States operates and funds its intelligence agencies, courtesy of Edward Showden and the Washington Post. This will lead to no good. It makes friendly countries nervous about what we can do, and unfriendly countries happy about what we can’t do. This kind . . . Read more »

For years, the Intelligence Community has fought hard against the disclosure of its budget. Even the top line total was, for many decades, classified. Now, thanks to Edward Snowden, the Washington Post has the 2013 budget proposal. [Warning to readers with clearances — the article is not classified, but links therein appear to be.] As . . . Read more »

I agree with Jack’s analysis of the UK statement. I would add that the British legal position is not new. The British relied on the doctrine of humanitarian intervention for their participation in the NATO bombings of Kosovo in 1999 (when the Clinton Administration asserted no legal basis) and to police the No Fly Zones . . . Read more »

I cannot decide if I am more annoyed at the Washington Post or more annoyed at the Obama administration for the way this latest cache of Snowden-leaked NSA documents is playing. I have now gone through the documents with some care, and I find both the Post’s formulation of the story and the administration’s response to the . . . Read more »

Over at the Washington Post, Barton Gellman has a Snowden-sourced piece revealing that the NSA “has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008.” According to an internal audit from May 2012, the violations typically come in the form of . . . Read more »

President Obama is currently holding a press conference at which he is speaking on a range of Lawfare-relevant topics. He has announced, report the Washington Post and New York Times, proposals to reform the NSA’s surveillance programs. The administration has also released a White Paper on the collection of telephony metadata under Section 215. [Update]: Here is the . . . Read more »

So says the Washington Post. Here’s the FBI’s response to Paul’s letter last week, and here is what Senator Paul said about the response as he lifted his hold (but voted against the nomination): The FBI today responded to my questions on domestic use of surveillance drones by saying that they don’t necessarily need a warrant . . . Read more »

The White House announcement on Friday that the Defense Department plans to transfer two Algerian detainees held at Guantanamo to Algeria represents the most recent action in a long series of efforts by both the Bush and Obama Administrations to repatriate Algerian detainees from Guantanamo. In previous years, both Administrations focused their public messaging on the . . . Read more »

There are at least three noteworthy elements in the WP’s story this morning about intelligence committee “approval” of “CIA weapons shipments to opposition fighters in Syria.” First is the fact that the intelligence committees “voted on the administration’s plan” last week. An intelligence committee vote is not typically a prerequisite to a covert action. Under the covert . . . Read more »

The Washington Post this morning has another big NSA story, this one historical in nature. I’m still digesting it, so for now, I’ll just flag key aspects of it. Reporter Barton Gellman has obtained “a classified NSA history of STELLARWIND”—the series of four domestic collection programs that began during the Bush adminstration, one of which . . . Read more »

The New Republic has just published an essay we wrote over the weekend on the late unpleasantness involving surveillance. It opens: Former NSA contractor Edwards Snowden sure does know how to change the subject. Only a few days ago, everyone was talking about the excesses of leak investigations. But now, as a result of his set of . . . Read more »

The press scandals keep on coming for the Obama Administration. Hot on the heels of revelations that the administration subpoenaed the Associated Press’s phone records as part of a leak investigation, the Washington Post reported on Monday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) targeted James Rosen, a Fox News reporter, in the Espionage Act investigation . . . Read more »

A few years ago I wrote an op-ed that gave these reasons (among others) why the USG should not prosecute Julian Assange for the WikiLeaks disclosures of State Department cables: A conviction [of Assange] would also cause collateral damage to American media freedoms. It is difficult to distinguish Assange or WikiLeaks from The Washington Post. National security . . . Read more »

Ben quotes from this morning’s Washington Post editorial on AUMF reform, the last two sentences of which assert that “Countering the jihadists with intelligence and law enforcement tools manifestly failed before Sept. 11, 2001. Congress would be wise to ensure that this president and his successors have the authority they need to defend the country.” There are at . . . Read more »

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In advance of tonight’s midnight deadline, nuclear negotiators in Switzerland have been working hard and working late. Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stated, “We are working late into the night and obviously into tomorrow.” The Washington Post has the tick-tock on diplomats “scurry[ing] to reach” a settlement. Still, even if Iran and the . . . Read more »

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